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Tony Frankel
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Los Angeles Theater Review: RED FLAGS (Capital W at the Hollywood Fringe Festival)
FLAGGED DOWN Who hasn’t walked away from some bad dates thinking, “Jesus, that was like being in a play.” Well, now Capital W — a theater company that offers unconventional, immersive, and site-specific theater — has created a bad date for you in the aptly titled Red Flags. This one-on-one improvisational play, in which you participate…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: 2017 PLAYBOY JAZZ FESTIVAL (The Hollywood Bowl)
THIS FESTIVAL IS ALL ABOUT PLAY, BOY OK, you’ve heard about it for years. But now you’re ready to take the plunge (and you should be) to attend the world famous Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. These two marathon days, June 10 & 11, 2017, can seem a bit intimidating, so let me…
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Los Angeles Concert Preview: BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE (Michael Feinstein, Liza Minnelli, Storm Large & the Pasadena POPS)
MICHAEL FEINSTEIN! LIZA MINNELLI! STORM LARGE! JOEL GREY! BROADWAY! No one can argue that Michael Feinstein’”charismatic, appealing, boyish, excited, and eager to please’”has singlehandedly reinvigorated the American Songbook for the 21st century, but this beguiling raconteur is also a consummate showman who is so knowledgeable and adorable that you may just want to pinch his…
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San Diego Theater Preview: THE IMAGINARY INVALID (Fiasco Theater at The Old Globe)
AN IMAGINARY IMAGINARY Back in March, Roundabout Theatre announced their plans for 2017. After collaborating with Fiasco Theater on their acclaimed paired-down production of Into the Woods in 2015, Roundabout has named Fiasco their company in residence. This means Fiasco will be provided with an artistic home and full use of Roundabout’s resources to continue developing their work….
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Los Angeles Music Preview: LUX AETERNA 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT (Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall)
SHINE ON, ETERNAL LIGHT In just twenty years of existence, Morten Lauridsen’s gorgeous choral masterwork Lux Aeterna has become one of the most performed works worldwide. Under direction of the late Paul Salamunovich, our own Los Angeles Master Chorale presented the world premiere of this five-movement requiem in 1997, and recorded it the next year. Now, this iconic gem…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BATTLEFIELD (Peter Brook’s production at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
SNOB HIT Well, that was boring. Of all the people on the planet who should understand the difference between theater and an underwhelming fringe entry (low cost and well-meaning with no set, minimal costume, and small cast), you would think it would be the great innovator and influencer Peter Brook. He may not be a household…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: LUCKY STIFF (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
A LIMP STIFF Before composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens were, well, the Flaherty and Ahrens who created Once on This Island, Ragtime, Suessical, et al., they were a young upstart pair of ambitious writers. Their first project, Lucky Stiff, a musical farce based on Michael Butterworth’s 1983 novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at…
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Dance Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Scottish Ballet)
A STREETCAR TO HEAVEN Thankfully not just a review of record. Still, you only have two more chances to catch what is surely the most phenomenal storytelling I have ever seen in a narrative ballet. The highest compliment I can offer director Nancy Meckler, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and composer Peter Salem is that you don’t…
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Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (2017-18 National Tour)
JERSEY CASH COW Jersey Boys, the terrific 2004 jukebox musical inspired by the story of pop sensation Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, is one of the greatest triumphs in Broadway history, spawning a spate of companies around the globe and a slew of national tours. So what’s a producer to do since the Broadway…
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CD Review: A BRONX TALE (Original Broadway Cast on Ghostlight Records)
CD GETS NEITHER BRONX CHEER NOR FUGGEDABOUDIT It began as a 1989 solo play written by and starring Chazz Palminteri. Robert DeNiro saw this coming-of-age saga and became the powerhouse behind the well-received 1993 film which he starred in and directed. The story concerns Calogero (or “C”), an Italian lad who had a brief flirt with organized crime…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: STATE FAIR (Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theatre in Glendale)
A GREAT STATE FAIR Corny? Completely! Simple and sentimental? Sure! Did I love it? You betcha! Rarely performed since its Broadway outing in 1996, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s frolicking farmyard musical will have you believing that happiness is just a thing called prize pig and perfect pickle (“She knows her way around a cucumber” is now…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: THE BEST OF WAGNER’S RING (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
PHILLIPE JORDAN, LORD OF THE RING Little more than 200 years since the birth of Wagner, and the world still can’t get enough of the German composer. Love him or hate him, he is one of the most influential composers of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The musical innovator introduced many musical offerings,…
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Los Angeles Concert Feature: IDOLS & ICONS (The 33rd [and final] S.T.A.G.E. at Saban Theatre)
COME SALUTE THE END OF AN ERA It’s a bit surreal, but the the theater community’s longest-running AIDS-related benefit is having its final fundraiser on Saturday May 13, 2017. The Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (best known by its acronym S.T.A.G.E.) will present its 33rd cavalcade of stars at the snazzy Art Deco-styled 1930 Saban Theatre…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: MATTHEW BOURNE’S EARLY ADVENTURES (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
THE EARLY BIRD GETS TICKETS NOW Touring internationally for the first part of the year, Matthew Bourne’s Early Adventures’”a program of the newly knighted choreographer’s first works’”will have one U.S. appearance. And it’s right here in Los Angeles for one weekend only, May 17-21, 2017, at the Wallis in Beverly Hills. One of the greatest…
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Los Angeles Music Review MARTHA ARGERICH & STEPHEN KOVACEVICH (Recital at Disney Hall)
PRIMO AND PRIMO A strange thing happened on the way to the duo piano recital of the once-married pianists Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich at Disney hall last Saturday. A few minutes before the Debussy-heavy program began, the normal “turn off your cell phones” pre-show announcement (which doggedly refuses to castigate crinkling programs and whispered…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE ENCOUNTER (Complicite at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
THEATER ON TAPE Once the mainstay of fringe festivals and performance art houses, one-person plays showcasing the likes of James Whitmore and Lily Tomlin became financially viable in the latter quarter of the twentieth century, but they were rare. Given the financial constraints of modern theater, however, solo shows are cropping up like opium poppies…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: GROUNDLINGS SLEEPAWAY CAMP (The Groundlings Theatre)
IT’S TIME FOR S’MORE GROUNDLINGS Who doesn’t love sitting around a campfire scaring the crap outta some brat? Who doesn’t love canoe trips down a rocky brook? Who doesn’t love that first crush on a nubile camp counselor? Who doesn’t love listening to Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”? Who doesn’t love watching a deranged lunatic having his way…
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Los Angeles Music Review: SALONEN & SIBELIUS (Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall)
THOSE SUMPTUOUS STRINGS OF SIBELIUS Fresh-faced and vital, Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program centered on Finland’s greatest composer, Jean Sibelius. I was somewhat concerned since a few separate music lovers I know found last Thursday’s performance, the first of a 3-performance weekend, underwhelming. I admit that there’s…
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CD Review: DREAM AGO (Gabrielle Stravelli)
DREAM-Y Well, it finally happened. After a slew of cabaret CD’s from solo artists that lack distinction, originality, and cool arrangements, I happened upon a rising-star in both the cabaret and jazz worlds. The first thing you will notice about Gabrielle Stravelli is that voice: Unforced, earthy, flexible, playful and unpretentious, her jazzy/cool  spectrum of colors…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: THE TALES OF HOFFMANN (LA Opera)
A LENGTHY BUT LOVELY OFFENBACH Just as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in the middle of writing his famous Requiem so did Jacques Offenbach die composing his fantastical opera Tales of Hoffmann. Both works have been seen as highly personal compositions: Mozart writing his own requiem and Offenbach standing in for Hoffmann, his protagonist. The similarities…
Theater Review: ST. NICHOLAS (Black Button Eyes / City Lit / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | July 3, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterFAST PAYOUT CASINOS USA 2026 — 5 BEST INSTANT WITHDRAWAL CASINOS RANKED
by Michael Carr | July 3, 2026
in ExtrasTheater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater / Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 1, 2026
in Chicago, Theater
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